Delmore Schwartz
Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 - July 11, 1966) was an American poet and short story writer. Life Youth and education Schwartz was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. His parents, Harry and Rose, separated when Schwartz was 9, and their divorce had a profound effect on him. In 1930, another traumatizing event occurred when Schwartz's father suddenly died at the age of 49. Though Harry had accumulated a good deal of wealth from his dealings in the real estate business, Delmore only inherited a few thousand dollars due to the shady dealings of the dishonest executor of Harry's estate. According to Schwartz's biographer, James Atlas, "Delmore continued to hope that he would eventually receive his legacy even as late as 1946".Atlas, James. Delmore Schwartz: The Life of An American Poet. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1977. 32 Schwartz spent time at Columbia University and the University of Wisconsin before finally graduating from New York University in 1935. He then went on to do some graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University where he studied with the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, but Schwartz left without receiving a degree and returned to New York.Atlas, James. Delmore Schwartz: The Life of An American Poet. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1977. Career Schwartz made his parents' disastrous marriage the subject of his most famous short story, "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" which was published in 1937 in the inaugural issue of Partisan Review.Howe, Irving. Foreword. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories. By Delmore Schwartz. New York: New Directions, 1978. vii. This story, and other short stories and poems, were collected and released in his debut collection, also entitled In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, in 1938. The book was well received, and made him a well-known figure in New York intellectual circles. His work received praise from some of the most respected people in literature, and he was ranked among the most gifted writers of his generation. According to James Atlas, Allen Tate responded to the book by stating that, "Schwartz's poetic style marked 'the first real innovation we've had since Eliot and Pound.'"Atlas, James. "Introduction." In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories. New York: New Directions, 1978. In 1937, Schwartz married Gertrude Buckman, a book reviewer for Partisan Review, whom he divorced 6 years later. For the next couple of decades, he continued to publish stories, poems and plays, and edited the Partisan Review from 1943 to 1955 as well as ''The New Republic''. In 1948, he married the much younger novelist, Elizabeth Pollet. This relationship also ended in divorce. He taught creative writing at 6 different universities, including Syracuse, Princeton, and Kenyon College. In addition to being known as a gifted writer, Schwartz was considered a great conversationalist and spent much time entertaining friends at the White Horse Tavern in New York City. Lou Reed, who dedicated his song European Son ''to Schwartz, recently recalled how, as a young student in upstate New York, he had met the writer whom he describes as "my teacher, friend, and the person who changed my life, the smartest, funniest, saddest person I'd ever met." It was a bad time in Schwartz's life; the best was far behind him. Yet there was an immediate intimacy between them. Schwartz, Reed said, showed him how "to take a poet or novelist's approach to songs, so the lyrics could stand alone but with the fun of the two guitars, bass and drums to enhance them." Schwartz was unable to repeat or build on his early successes later in life as a result of alcoholism and mental illness, and his last years were spent in reclusion at the Columbia Hotel in New York City. In fact, Schwartz was so isolated from the rest of the world that when he died on July 11, 1966 at age 52, of a heart attack, 2 days passed before his body was claimed from the morgue. Schwartz was interred at Cedar Park Cemetery, in Emerson, New Jersey. Writing A selection of Schwartz's short stories was published posthumously in 1978 under the title 'In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, and other stories.' It was edited by James Atlas who had written a biography on Schwartz, (''Delmore Schwartz: The life of an American poet) just 2 years earlier. Another collection of Schwartz's work, Screeno: Stories and poems, was published in 2004. This collection contained fewer stories than In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, but it also included a brief selection of some of Schwartz's best-known poems like "The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me" and "In The Naked Bed, In Plato's Cave." Screeno also featured an introduction by fiction writer and essayist Cynthia Ozick. Much of Schwartz's work is notable for its philosophical and deeply meditative nature. Literary critic R.W. Flint wrote that Schwartz's stories were, "the definitive portrait of the Jewish middle class in New York during the Depression."Flint, R.W. "The Stories of Delmore Schwartz." Commentary, April 1962. His poetry differed in many respects from his stories in that it was less autobiographical and was much more philosophical. His verse would also become increasingly abstract in his later years. Recognition In 1959, Schwartz became the youngest-ever recipient of the Bollingen Prize, awarded for a collection of poetry he published that year, Summer Knowledge: New and selected poems. In popular culture An early tribute to Schwartz came from Schwartz's friend, poet Robert Lowell, who published the poem "To Delmore Schwartz" in 1959 (while Schwartz was still alive) in the book Life Studies. In "To Delmore Schwartz," Lowell reminisces about the time that the poets spent together at Harvard in 1946, writing that they were "underseas fellows, nobly mad,/ we talked away our friends." A year after Schwartz's death, in 1967, his former student at Syracuse University, singer-songwriter and poet Lou Reed, dedicated his song "European Son" to Schwartz (although the lyrics themselves made no direct reference to Schwartz). In 1968, Schwartz's friend, poet John Berryman, dedicated his book His Toy, His Dream, His Rest" to the sacred memory of Delmore Schwartz," including 12 elegiac poems about Schwartz in the book. In "Dream Song #149," Berryman wrote of Schwartz, In the brightness of his promise, unstained, I saw him thro' the mist of the actual blazing with insight, warm with gossip thro' all our Harvard years when both of us were just becoming known I got him out of a police-station once, in Washington, the world is tref and grief too astray for tears.Berryman, John. "Dream Song #149". His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1968. The most ambitious literary tribute to Schwartz came in 1975 when Saul Bellow, a protege of Schwartz's, published his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Humboldt's Gift which was based on his relationship with Schwartz. Although the character of Von Humboldt Fleischer is Bellow's portrait of Schwartz during Schwartz's declining years, the book is actually a testament to Schwartz's lasting artistic influence on Bellow. Lou Reed's 1982 album The Blue Mask included another Schwartz homage with the song "My House." This song is much more of a tribute to Schwartz than "European Son" since the lyrics of "My House" are actually about Reed's relationship with Schwartz. In the song, Reed writes that Schwartz "was the first great man that I ever met." In the 1994 science fiction movie Star Trek: Generations, the villain, Dr. Tolian Soran, quotes the line, "Time is the fire in which we burn," from Schwartz's poem, "Calmly We Walk through this April's Day." Publications Poetry *''In Dreams Begin Responsibilities'' (short stories & poems). Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1938. *''Genesis'' (prose poem). New York: J. Laughlin, 1943. *''Vaudeville for a Princess, and other poems''. New Directions 1950. *''Summer Knowledge: New and selected poems''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959 ** published as Selected Poems: Summer knowledge, 1938-1958. New York: New Directions, 1967. *''I Am Cherry Alive, the Little Girl Sang'' (illustrated by George Condo). New York: Harper, 1979. ** published as I Am Cherry Alive: Poem. Chronicle, 1995. *''Last and Lost Poems of Delmore Schwartz'' (edited by Robert Phillips). Vanguard, 1979. ** revised edition, New Direction, 1989. Play *''Shenandoah'' (verse play; produced Off-Off-Broadway, 1969). Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1941. Short fiction *''World Is a Wedding''. New Directions, 1948. *''Successful Love, and other stories, 1938-1958''. Corinth, 1961. *''In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, and other stories'' (edited by James Atlas). New York: New Directions, 1978. Non-fiction * American Poetry at Mid-Century (with John Crowe Ransom & John Hall Wheelock). Gertrude Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund, 1958. *''Selected Essays of Delmore Schwartz'' (edited by Donald A. Dike & David H. Zucker). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. *''The Ego Is Always at the Wheel: Bagatelles'' (introduction by Robert Phillips). New Directions, 1986. Letters and journals *''Letters of Delmore Schwartz'' (edited by Robert Phillips). Ontario Review Press, 1985. *''Portrait of Delmore: Journals and notes of Delmore Schwartz, 1939-1959''. Farrar, Straus, 1986. *''Delmore Schwartz and James Laughlin: Selected letters'' (edited by Robert Phillips). Norton, 1993. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.Delmore Schwartz 1913-1966, Poetry Foundation, Web, July 12, 2012. See also *List of U.S. poets *Timeline of American poetry References Fonds *Delmore Schwartz Papers at Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Notes External links ;Poems *"Calmly We Walk through This April's Day" *"The First Morning of the Second World," Kenyon Review *Delmore Schwartz profile & 2 poems at the Academy of American Poets *Delmore Schwartz 1913-1966 at the Poetry Foundation *Delmore Schwartz at PoemHunter (70 poems) ;Audio / video *Delmore Schwartz at YouTube ;Books *Delmore Schwartz at Amazon.com ;About *Delmore Schwartz in the Encyclopædia Britannica *"Poet Delmore Schwartz: Orpheus In purgatory" A biographical overview of Schwartz from PBS. *"'To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all': The fictional life and real legend of Delmore Schwartz" by Robert Fulford